Singapore Close To Completion Of $1.1B Sports Hub

Premiership sides, rugby's HSBC Sevens World Series and cricket's Indian Premier League "will soon be strutting their stuff at the Singapore Sports Hub, a playground for the world's most-famous athletes," according to Alvin Sallay of the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST. While Hong Kong is "still undecided on how to proceed with a sports hub at Kai Tak, its business as usual in Singapore, which is steaming ahead toward completion" of its S$1.37B ($1.1B) project in March '14. Venue operator Global Spectrum Managing Dir Mark Collins said, "That is our scheduled date for completion of the project, and we are well on the way to meeting it. We are down the final stretch now." A 35-hectare site at the edge of the Kallang Basin, next to Singapore's city center, "the sports hub will offer elite and recreational sporting and entertainment facilities." Collins said, "We have already signed MOU's (memorandum of understanding) with around 20 major events in the run-up to 2015 when Singapore hosts the SEA (Southeast Asia) Games." The hub is the "largest sports infrastructure public-private partnership (PPP) in the world." Under the PPP arrangement, "the government will pay the consortium an annual fee" that covers construction, operating and financing costs over 25 years (SCMP, 11/18).